The ANC is in a desperate scramble to persuade its biggest partner in the government of national unity (GNU) to reverse its decision to reject departmental budgets ahead of the passage of the Appropriations Bill this week.
The DA has dug in its heels over its resolution to reject departmental budgets for ANC ministers implicated in wrongdoing.
This comes as the National Assembly gets ready to debate the crucial Appropriations Bill on Wednesday. The bill allocates funds to various national departments and entities, and includes a schedule made up of departmental votes.
According to legal advice received by the chair of the standing committee on appropriations, Mmusi Maimane, a rejection of several departmental budgets could mean the collapse of the budget. The legal advice says a failure by MPs to approve respective departmental votes in the schedule would “amount to the rejection of the bill, which [would] necessitate reintroduction of the bill”.
“If you reject one [departmental budget], you reject all [of them], and by extension you reject the bill. The message I would like to send to any political party — and it’s not unique to the DA — [is that], if you want to deal with the ANC, for whatever political GNU reason, do not threaten the livelihoods of the people of South Africa,” Maimane warned.
“On August 1, if South Africa does not have an Appropriations Bill, it will go back to the provisions of the PFMA [Public Finance Management Act], which says you go down to 10% expenditure annually. There is no wage bill of less than 10%. Politicians must tell South Africans which teachers they want to pay, [as well as] which nurses and police they are going to pay, because, frankly, just on the wage bill alone, you can’t spend on 10%. That is the consequence.”
If the budget is not passed, the PFMA allows for 45% of the total amount appropriated in the previous annual budget to be withdrawn from the national revenue fund and spent on existing programmes for the first four months of the financial year.
During each month thereafter, up to 10% of the total amount appropriated in the previous annual budget may be withdrawn. The amount withdrawn may not exceed the total amount appropriated in the previous annual budget.
Maimane said: “The only provision in law is that, if you reject the Appropriations Bill, it must go back to the appropriations committee and, once it goes back, the Money Bills and Related Matters Act states that the only things we can deal with are the financial implications of [the rejection] ...
“The political reasons are not prescribed for in law. Parties must commit themselves to work hard on ... [achieving] what we want to see reflected in the budget and spending reviews. That is what we must focus on, and that is what the budget must give expression to. But you can’t use a budget to give expression to who you want as minister of higher education. That is a GNU issue that threatens the people of South Africa.”
The DA has, however, downplayed the implications of its decision to reject departmental budgets, arguing that the “ball was in President Cyril Ramaphosa’s court”. DA spokesperson Willie Aucamp told the Sunday Times this week that Maimane was disingenuous in his interpretation of the law. The DA believes that, despite its actions, government programmes will continue.
It is clear the ANC wants to govern the country as if nothing changed in last year’s elections, and ActionSA will not enable that.
— Michael Beaumont, ActionSA
“It’s not a matter of the budget coming to a standstill,” Aucamp said. “That is not how it works in our country. The current budget stays on. There is just no money for new projects. Governance will go on. Service delivery will go on. We have measures in our legislation that allow for governance and service delivery to continue.”
The Sunday Times understands that attempts by the ANC to woo ActionSA to secure an advantage during the upcoming budget vote were rejected this week.
The relationship between ActionSA and the ANC soured after the Herman Mashaba-led party was left out in the cold when the DA and the ANC negotiated a third budget attempt a few months ago. ActionSA had previously supported the ANC to gain a majority during a vote on the fiscal framework, which proposed a 0.5% VAT increase.
“The ANC is sorely mistaken if it believes ActionSA can be used,” ActionSA’s national chair, Michael Beaumont, told the Sunday Times. “This budget arose from the GNU, and the ANC must find support for it from within the GNU, not opposition parties they failed to consult when they were developing the budget. It is clear the ANC wants to govern the country as if nothing changed in last year’s elections, and ActionSA will not enable that.”
With the DA, the EFF and the MK Party having already indicated they will reject some departmental budgets, ActionSA is a crucial part of the ANC's plan to pass the bill.
ANC chief whip Mdumiseni Ntuli said the ANC presented a proposal to political parties in an attempt to avoid the collapse of the sitting on Wednesday. He said the party whips had agreed to allow voting to continue until the end, so that they would know which of the departmental budgets were being referred back to the appropriations committee for further processing.
This will allow the ANC to find a political solution to its GNU challenges with the DA.
“Parliament has a rule which says a bill that has not been accepted by the house cannot come back in the same financial year,” Ntuli said. “I’m hoping the DA will be a bit responsible in the sense that they don’t vote against the bill. If they vote against the bill, it immediately means parliament might have to come to a decision about its own life.”
Beaumont said ActionSA would vote strictly in respect of budgetary considerations, and not on the basis of the health of the GNU.
“South Africans have seen the DA walk back from every ultimatum they have issued in this GNU, and it is time this GNU got its act together and governed the country,” he said. “If it cannot pass a budget with 71% of parliament in its ranks, then it is becoming increasingly clear this GNU is the problem, and that enabling its continuation in its present form is not going to bring about change for South Africans.”
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